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Wednesday, August 2, 2017

This was a surprise. A committed liberal feminist, writing in the New York Times, of all places, offered a profound criticism of the leadership of the Women's March yesterday. Bari Weiss wonders why the four women who organized the affair have been given a pass by the media despite the fact that each of them has made decidedly unliberal, even odious, statements and associations.

Weiss begins by describing her initial enthusiasm for the March and her disgust with the then newly-elected Trump administration and then writes this:

The House Democratic leader, Nancy Pelosi, offered her congratulations to the march’s “courageous organizers” and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand gushed about them in Time, where they were among the top 100 most influential people of 2017. “The Women’s March was the most inspiring and transformational moment I’ve ever witnessed in politics,” she wrote. “And it happened because four extraordinary women — Tamika Mallory, Bob Bland, Carmen Perez and Linda Sarsour — had the courage to take on something big, important and urgent, and never gave up.”

The image of this fearsome foursome, echoed in more than a few flattering profiles, was as seductive as a Benetton ad. There was Tamika Mallory, a young black activist who was crowned the “Sojourner Truth of our time” by Jet magazine and “a leader of tomorrow” by Valerie Jarrett. Carmen Perez, a Mexican-American and a veteran political organizer, was named one of Fortune’s Top 50 World Leaders. Linda Sarsour, a hijab-wearing Palestinian-American and the former head of the Arab-American Association of New York, had been recognized as a “champion of change” by the Obama White House. And Bob Bland, the fashion designer behind the “Nasty Women” T-shirts, was the white mother who came up with the idea of the march in the first place.

But despite the fawning praise these women are not what they may seem:

Start with Ms. Sarsour, by far the most visible of the quartet of organizers. It turns out that this “homegirl in a hijab,” as one of many articles about her put it, has a history of disturbing views, as advertised by . . . Linda Sarsour.

[O]ddly, given her status as a major feminist organizer, [she has sent more] than a few [tweets] that seem to make common cause with anti-feminists, like this from 2015: “You’ll know when you’re living under Shariah law if suddenly all your loans and credit cards become interest-free. Sound nice, doesn’t it?” She has dismissed the anti-Islamist feminist Ayaan Hirsi Ali in the most crude and cruel terms, insisting she is “not a real woman” and confessing that she wishes she could take away Ms. Ali’s vagina — this about a woman who suffered genital mutilation as a girl in Somalia....

On July 16, the official Twitter feed of the Women’s March offered warm wishes to Assata Shakur. “Happy birthday to the revolutionary #AssataShakur!” read the tweet, which featured a “#SignOfResistance, in Assata’s honor” — a pink and purple Pop Art-style portrait of Ms. Shakur, better known as Joanne Chesimard, a convicted killer who is on the F.B.I.’s list of most wanted terrorists.

Like many others, CNN’s Jake Tapper noticed the outrageous tweet. “Shakur is a cop-killer fugitive in Cuba,” he tweeted, going on to mention Ms. Sarsour’s troubling past statements. “Any progressives out there condemning this?” he asked.

In the face of this sober criticism, Ms. Sarsour cried bully: “@jaketapperjoins the ranks of the alt-right to target me online. Welcome to the party.”

It requires either profound ignorance or audacious mendacity to accuse anyone at CNN, and particularly Jake Tapper, of being among the ranks of the alt-right.

Ms. Weiss goes on to ask the reasonable question, "Since when did criticizing a domestic terrorist become a signal issue of the far right? Last I checked, that position was a matter of basic decency and patriotism."

But it's not just the benighted Linda Sarsour who holds views so contrary to the goals of most feminists and associations so contrary to basic human decency:

Ms. Mallory, in addition to applauding Assata Shakur as a feminist emblem, also admires Fidel Castro, who sheltered Ms. Shakur in Cuba. She put up a flurry of posts when Mr. Castro died last year. “R.I.P. Comandante! Your legacy lives on!” she wrote in one. She does not have similar respect for American police officers. “When you throw a brick in a pile of hogs, the one that hollers is the one you hit,” she posted on Nov. 20.

Ms. Perez also expressed her admiration for a Black Panther convicted of trying to kill six police officers: “Love learning from and sharing space with Baba Sekou Odinga.”
But the public figure both women regularly fawn over is Louis Farrakhan.

On May 11, Ms. Mallory posted a photo with her arm around Mr. Farrakhan, the 84-year-old Nation of Islam leader notorious for his anti-Semitic comments, on Twitter and Instagram. “Thank God this man is still alive and doing well,” she wrote. It is one of several videos and photos and quotes that Ms. Mallory has posted of Mr. Farrakhan.
Ms. Perez is also a big fan. In the fall, she posted a photo in which she holds hands with Mr. Farrakhan, writing, “There are many times when I sit with elders or inspirational individuals where I think, ‘I just wish I could package this and share this moment with others.’ ” She’s also promoted video of Mr. Farrakhan “dropping knowledge” and another in which he says he is “speaking truth to power.”

Weiss goes on to explain to younger readers why Farrakhan's hateful views are so contemptible and why praise of him from the organizers of the March is so appalling. It makes you wonder whether American women really want these four organizers to be the face of modern feminism. Has progressivism degenerated to such an extent that the heroines of the movement are people who praise the oppressions of sharia, who praise tyrants and killers like Fidel Castro and those who murder police, and who embrace men like Farrakhan who are patent anti-semites and racists?

Weiss concludes with this:

Will progressives have more spine than conservatives in policing hate in their ranks? Or will they ignore it in their fury over the Trump administration?

I am sure that Linda Sarsour, and perhaps the other leaders of the Women’s March, will block me for writing this. Maybe I’ll be accused of siding with the alt-right or tarred as Islamophobic. But what I stand against is embracing terrorists, disdaining independent feminist voices, hating on democracies and celebrating dictatorships. If that puts me beyond the pale of the progressive feminist movement in America right now, so be it.

Sadly, she is indeed outside the ranks of much of contemporary progressive thinking which is more closely aligned with that of the March's organizers than it is with Ms. Weiss. The Left has been mainstreaming hatred and bigotry for some time, and the progressive media has largely ignored it. It's good that liberals like Ms. Weiss are beginning to notice and to call attention to it.